Just ran across this article and my husband always asks me this question... I wont stop painting my lil ones face or cheek or arms, but thought I would share....Is face painting dangerous?

Posted by Karen on 2/16/10 • Categorized as Health,Kids,Lead Stories,Medical,Preschooler

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It seems like every children’s event these days has an arts and crafts table with a face painter. But, is that face paint safe?

Last year, a report for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics was issued regarding the safety of face paint. The researchers tested 10 different face painting kits, all commonly found in craft stores. Their findings were pretty scary indeed, “all 10 face paint products tested contained lead, and 6 out of 10 had known skin allergens, including nickel, cobalt or chromium, at levels above recommendations of industry studies,” said Stacy Malkan, the campaign’s co-founder and a co-author of the report. For the new report, she said, “We looked for a range of heavy metals, and we didn’t find mercury or arsenic. Other countries have found those in face paints. We did unfortunately find lead in all the products.” Experts say there is no safe level of lead exposure for children and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that parents avoid using cosmetics on their children that could be contaminated with lead. Lead exposure early in life can lead to hyperactivity, impulsive behavior, IQ deficits, reduced school performance, aggression and delinquent behavior. It can also impact fertility, including increasing risk for miscarriage and reducing sperm quality. Early-life lead exposure can even increase risk for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

After the 2009 Campaign for Safe Cosmetics report came out, some face paints are now being labeled “nontoxic”, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are buying a lead-free paint. In fact, Malkan says, one product “was advertised on the package as nontoxic and hypoallergenic, [and] had some of the highest levels of nickel, cobalt and lead.”

Further reporting by BabyCenter is helpful in providing guidelines for using face paint. Dr. Dennis Woo, former chair of pediatrics at Santa Monica-UCLA and Orthopaedic Hospital, Santa Monica, Calif., who reviewed the report, said, using face paint once a year “is probably not going to do anything at all [healthwise],” . But, he said he is surprised by the amounts of heavy metals found in the face paints. “We should start looking at this stuff. There’s no reason these heavy metals need to be in cosmetics.” His colleague, Dr. Wally Ghurabi, chief of emergency services, Santa Monica-UCLA and Orthopaedic Hospital, believes that even once-a-year use of the face paints may not be worth it. “Concerned parents should skip it,” he said. If those who apply the paints aren’t careful, he said, and get the paint too close to the eyes or nose, that could be potentially harmful.

The only way to know if a cosmetic product contains lead or other heavy metals is to test the product at a laboratory, which the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics did for this report at a cost of $270.00 per sample.

Thankfully, you can still do face painting safely. You just need some time and ingenuity. Safe Cosmetics put together a list of DIY face paint recipes that range from chocolate masks to beet red lip gloss. If you can convince your child to stay away from the face painting table, you can make it a fun home activity you can do together.

I would bet my entire stock of Suzy Sparkles Glitter Gel that they are referring only to non-professional type face paints... if the ones we use are not safe, then neither is the basic cosmetics we use on our faces everyday.

I remember when this thing came out a year or two ago... the best we could figure out is that it's an extremist group that is trying to make these companies look bad. Would it really be better to smear food all over kids faces? How upset would people be if we stained their children with beet juice and it didn't wash off for a week? Let alone the smell and the bugs and what it would look like??

Snazaroo has been tested for the European toy safety ratings and the other professional brands are regularly tested as safe cosmetics as well I'm sure.... Don't let this kind of fear-mongering make you feel unsafe about it. You aren't using cheap dollar store garbage or craft paints... the products we trust as professional face painters are regularly tested for safety and the fewest possible allergic reactions.

Some people will try to throw a scare where they can on ridiculuous claims. Don't want a child to ever touch lead? We need to start a campaign to take pencils out of their hands and keep them from going fishing!

actually, pencils don't have lead in them anymore... it's been graphite for some time.... BUT there is lead in water, tuna fish, etc. I don't think a microscopic amount put on their skin externally is something to worry about. I'd be more worried about the formaldehyde and mercury in vaccinations.

leapinglizards wrote:Well, and when the findings came out, it WAS later pointed out, that the levels of those chemicals they found were WELL BELOW the allowable amounts of those same chemicles found in DRINKING WATER!

So, while yes- those things may be in there- you are drinking higher amounts of most of them already.

Worry more about the chemicals in processed foods, artificial sweeteners, and hormones fed to animals destined for our tables that my grandchildren my be exposed to during their lifetimes. BTW, thanks for the education about the pencils Perry but I was just being sarcastic with the comment. My generation was using lead pencils at an early age and we didn't have a clue what ADHD was and if you had a lot of energy, you got to go work in the garden. LOL!

I agree there are a lot more dangerous things out there for our children than facepainting.... I can think of a dozen or so just in our homes. I just wanted to share the article... Besides I live in vegas on top of old jet fuel plant...They actually had to dig five feet down or so, remove the dirt, take it and sterilize it, (the trucks had to be hosed down and the guys doing the hosing were wearing hazmat clothes before they could get back on the public streets. ) Yikes. ( Didnt know this when we bought the house). Love the paint love the smiles...

Do you live where the Pepcon factory was?!!!!! I was there when that exploded... it was the FIRST day I arrived to live in Vegas... heard it in my hotel room and ran to the window and saw it.... at first I thought a plane had crashed.

I'll never forget that! It was right next to a marshmallow factory, which also was destroyed. You can probably see video clips online somewhere that shows the ground actually rippling from the explosion...